


Behind the blue eyes

by Davincsoo



Category: EXO (Band), GOT7, SHINee
Genre: A/B/O, Alpha/Beta/Omega Dynamics, Angst, Blood and Violence, Comedy, Eventual Smut, Explicit Language, F/M, Fluff, Mild Smut, Other, Wolf AU, will add more eventually lol
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-17
Updated: 2019-08-17
Packaged: 2020-09-05 20:50:16
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 18,411
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20279626
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Davincsoo/pseuds/Davincsoo
Summary: Yixing is an alpha that became a leader too young. Lee Eunsook is a human that is just trying to survive college. When both of their path's cross, Yixing and Eusook will end up walking down one hell of a rough road.





	Behind the blue eyes

**Author's Note:**

> I've been working on this fic for about three years now. It was supposed to be this short 8k word fic, but I ended up writing up notes and plans for more. I'm new to writing a/b/o, even sort of new to fem!band-member, so I'm not sure if it will be a good one. It will be in a few parts that this fic is posted, how many? I'm not sure. But I do intend for this to me a long fic, one i hope you all enjoy. And please, if you have suggestions, I'm open to hearing them. Critisim as well.

“Yixing!” 

A twelve year old Yixing’s ears perked at the sound of his mother calling for him. He was in wolf form, had been stuck that way for a few days now. It was his first shift and they said that it was normal. That feeling all that he was feeling, unable to shift back, possibly even randomly shifting from wolf form to human form is normal. But it felt far from normal and he was terrified. He was torn between tearing into the next person to walk up on him, crying because he couldn’t run into his mother’s arms for comfort during all this, and wanting to eat things that he shouldn’t even be considering eating.

“Yixing, come out.” This time his mother’s voice was tender, warm, but he still hid under the porch, not wanting to hurt her. “You have nothing to fear, love. We’ve all been there. We’ve all have been exactly where you are now. Scared and worried that you might hurt someone.”

He whined softly and scooted further back until there was no more room left to move. Instead of continuing to try to talk him out from under the porch, his mother gets to her knees and crawls under the porch with him. It surprised him, but then he jumped when his father’s voice sounded after his mother. “Don’t you know how dangerous a terrified wolf is in a small space? What the hell are you doing?”

“He won’t hurt me!” She yells back at him and Yixing tries to cower. “He may be unable to control his emotions and his wolf nature, but that doesn’t mean he isn’t aware of who I am. I trust him, and so should you.”

“He could kill you!”

His mother ignored his father and continued to crawl until she, herself, could no longer find the room to move. Ignoring the filth and insects moving beneath her, she makes herself comfortable, and rests her hand on Yixing’s paws without hesitation. It amazed him because she wasn’t hesitant, nor did she do it slowly. She was confident that her son would not hurt her, and luckily for the both of them, he didn’t. “See?” she whispers softly, gently brushing her thumb over the coarse fur. “I told you that you wouldn’t hurt me.”

Almost as if it were magic, Yixing shifts back into his human form, dirt covered and naked. “Mama...” he speaks softly, lips quivering when she smiles back at him, and caresses his cheek. “I could have hurt you, mama…” 

She laughs lightly to soften the mood. “But you didn’t, even if the wolf inside you was itching to protect itself. You didn’t.”

  
  
  
  
  


A seventeen year old Yixing is running through the woods, swiftly and agile. He was being sought after, by whom he knows nothing. His parents have left to gather supplies for the winter, much needed supplies to help them survive until spring. It was his job, as the son of the leader of the pack to watch over the pack in their absence. And so far, he was doing a piss poor job of it. Not only did he leave the farm unattended, he left a dozen of wolf pups unprotected. Of course, they had their mothers, and there were also a few betas around, but not one alpha was on the farm right now. They all left to human jobs or to tend to other things. He was the only alpha, one of which wasn’t even a well trained alpha. If someone were to attack his pack, if an alpha were to attack… He didn’t dare think about it. 

He looked back briefly and cursed under his breath when a mess of people, wolves rather, have managed to gain up on him. Just who were these people and why were they chasing after him? That question had been running through his head, over and over until he couldn’t stand it lingering there anymore. So he stops abruptly and turns around to face his chasers. With every inch they gained, the more he grew ready. Ready to take on these people, ready to fight. With his eyes glowing a dull but bright red, he stands ready. “Come on,” he whispers as he watches the other wolves jump and leap over obstacles in their way. “Don’t fail me right when I need you.”

It was unfortunate, his power to shift whenever he wanted at command. Years, he was told, it would take for him to perfectly master shifting when he willed it, when he commanded the wolf, his wolf to. Years of hard, strenuous training, practice, days of not being able to shift into wolf form, and days not being able to shift out.  _ “I don’t understand why I have to go through all this. It’s like I’m going through puberty all over again and it wasn’t pleasant the first time.”Yixing whines. His mother kisses her son’s forehead and wraps a warm blanket around his cold bare body. “You’re still young, Yixing. Your wolf is a lot more than stubborn, he’s protective. If your wolf thought that it was time for you to shift freely between both forms, and safely, he would have let you known by now.” Yixing groans and curled into the warmth of his mother’s body.” What does it have to protect me from? We are one in the same, are we not?” His mother laughs lightly and hugs him close. “It’s that naivety, Yixing, that your wolf is trying to protect.” _

Yixing prayed, prayed hard that his wolf would spare him just this once and work with him to fight to protect himself. He needed to be one with his wolf, even if it was just for five minutes to stay alive. But nothing came. Not a spec of animal hair, not a fang, nothing. And then it hit him, just as quickly as the doubts that it wouldn’t had left him. His body twists painfully and he arches his back as his spine cracks and forms into the shape of a wolves. Yixing drops to all fours, screaming with pain, agonizing pain. He curled his fingers into raw earth and throws his head back as his body twists this way and that, preparing him for the shift from human to pure wolf. This shift was different, different from all the rest. His shifts were never this painful, never this gut wrenching, never like this. It was on another level, this shift, and it both terrified him and made him curious. 

“Stop,” he hears someone shout. “Stop! This isn’t like the other shifts.”

“What in the hell is his body doing?” he hears another shout.

Yixing has the urge to vomit, but somehow manages not to. He hangs his head low, his screaming dying out and turning into whimpers. He squeezes his eyes shut, breathing shallowly as the unbearable pain begins to ease. He could smell things now that he couldn’t before, not this intensely. Like the chocolate bar sitting in one of the wolves’ pockets that had been opened already, probably half eaten. The cologne that was a little too strong blew around with the wind, circling some, more than others. When he was able to lift his head, he opened his eyes and looked at the wolves around him, through wolf's eyes. He was still on guard, his wolf still on guard. He didn’t recognize any of these people, not one, but they smelled familiar. The youngest of the group standing there, by the looks of him, moved slightly and Yixing moved his head in his direction, snarling at him.

“I don’t want to have to hurt him,” he says, stepping back slowly. “But if he attacks me, I’m obligated to defend myself.”

“He isn’t going to attack anyone because we aren’t going to give him a reason too.” 

Yixing turns his head towards the voice, the one that spoke first initially, and watches him closely as if he might do something. He doesn’t, but that doesn’t make him feel any better. It was like his wolf was trying the lot of them, egging them on to see if anyone of them would be smart enough to take him. Yixing, however, just wanted them to quit coming after him and as they continued to talk amongst themselves, he started to sense a familiarity about them, like they weren’t strangers.

“Are you mad?” someone screams suddenly and before Yixing could defend himself, someone else comes barreling at him and knocks him a few feet away from where he previously stood. Yixing yelps as he collides with a tree, pain once again being sent coursing through his body. But unlike before, the pain doesn’t keep him down for very long. “Chinho, get your hormones under control, for fuck’s sake!”

“Blame the god damn full moon,” the beta growls back at him, eyes fixed on Yixing as he gets up from the ground. Yixing shakes the earthy floor off of his fur and looks back at Chinho, lunging for him in an instant. Luckily for the beta, he was quick and limber which made him able to quickly avoid being bitten by Yixing. That didn’t stop him, however. Yixing quickly caught himself and changed his course of direction. The beta snarled at him, almost barking, and Yixing snarled back at him. Then he goes after him once more, charging at him with more force than he had been. His wolf was no longer afraid of the situation they were put in, he was pissed. 

Before he could make contact with Chinho, another beta, a female jumped in between the two of them and let out a roar so profound that even the rest of the wolves were forced to take a few steps back in defeat. Yixing didn’t, but he didn’t dare try to go after Chinho again either. “We are not out here to act like a bunch of damn fools and I would appreciate it if you wouldn’t make Yixing feel like we are a threat.” 

Yixing tilted his head at the mention of his name and the girl looked down at him like she said something that she shouldn’t have. It was the least of his worries at this point because not too long after his name was spoken, he caught a whiff of an unfamiliar scent, a light pink, almost rose scent. It was just coming off of the female beta in front of him in waves. It was the most intriguing thing to him because it was new and he couldn’t figure it out. Whatever it was, though, seemed to go around her midsection. This caused him to stick his nose out toward her curiously, sniffing around her and nudging her stomach lightly in random places. 

“What in the hell is he doing?” Chinho asks dumbfoundedly. 

He still couldn’t explain what it was that he was smelling. It was like something was there, he just couldn’t see it. Within seconds though, he finds himself regaining parts of his human form, one by one, until he is kneeling right before her, instinctively to hide his exposed body. “Who brought the spare clothing?” the female asks while her eyes remained on his. Someone answers from behind her, but Yixing was still too focused on what he had smelled around her. When she is handed the clothing, she kneels down in front of him and places the clothes in his hand. “Hurry up and put these on. I suspect your parents will want to hear from you.”

“Are you pregnant?” Yixing asks suddenly, taking notice in the subtle glow on the beta’s face. But it wasn’t really the glow of her face that had dawned on him what the smell was, it was the small heartbeat he could hear that was not her own. When her eyes widen, Yixing tilts his head, interested in the fact that he was right, and even more interested in how he knew that aside from the heartbeat. “You are pregnant.”

“How did you even know?” she spits out, almost as if she has been exposed. “I’ve done so well to hide it. How did you know?”

Yixing pulls on the shirt and then slides into the pants not too long after. “I wonder how myself, honestly. But the best I can give you is that I could smell it on you.”

  
  
  
  
  
  
  


At twenty years old, Yixing was in control of his wolf, being able to shift more freely than not at all. He was ashamed to say, however, that his wolf often copped an attitude with him and kept him from shifting back into human form as quickly as other times. His father would laugh at him as he ruffled his fur and just keep reminding him,  _ “wolves don’t like being controlled, especially alpha wolves. To be completely honest, I’m surprised that your wolf isn’t taking more extreme measures.”  _ When Yixing would ask him what he meant by that, he would laugh again and just walk off.

Other than that, he had no other problems. His hearing had greatly improved, his nose much more distinct than before. He also picked up on tracking, as his dad called it. It wasn’t a term that Yixing was new to, but it was a term that he couldn’t get used to hearing. You would always hear people say that they are  _ hunting _ down their prey, others _ sniffing out the enemies. _ His dad wasn’t like those people. His dad used the term  _ tracking _ because it sounded less violent, less monstrous.  _ “We aren’t rabid animals, Yixing. We don’t go around killing innocent human beings like most of this world thinks that we do. We kill to survive, we track to survive. I set loose a deer this morning. On that deer is a tag, a tag in which I issued a number. I want you to track that deer down and bring me back that tag in the shape that I left it. Bring it back to me otherwise and you’ll be cleaning up after the animals in the barn for a month. You have until nightfall.” _

Due to the determination to not smell like animal manure for a solid month, Yixing brought back that tag without even a single speck of dirt. The downside to that, however, is that he unintentionally injured the deer's leg due to tackling it to the ground. But he didn’t kill it and that is what made his father most proud. He didn’t have to kill the animal in order to get what he was aiming for.  _ “A little sprain will slow it down, but it won’t kill it. The deer will be fine.”  _ Without telling anyone, Yixing would sneak off a few times during the week to check up on the deer to make sure it was still okay. By the third time leaving the farm, he found no traces of the animal and was able to sleep comfortably that night.

Now as far as the basic perks that come with being a wolf, nothing really changed. He was still as strong as ever, his roar still powerful, and his speed still great. He did hate how much his status as an alpha attracted other werewolf pack leaders seeking to find their daughters a mate. “Mom, I’m only twenty years old, barely out of high school. I don’t want to mate with anyone.” Yixing chugs down the rest of his water and places his glass in the sink. “I haven’t even the time to consider dating…”

“It’s not up to you, Yixing,” she tells him apologetically. “As the pack leaders son, you are made to mate with the daughter of whomever's pack ours can benefit from. And that choice is solely your father’s.” 

Yixing groaned and leaned back against the counter while his mother cleaned some freshly picked peas. “We aren’t royalty. I don’t understand why any of this matters.”

“It matters because we need alliances. Packs like ours that live off the land, we can’t always be sure that we are going to make it through the winter with the supplies that was worked all summer and fall to gather. The Choi’s have the resources and the means to see that we don’t die out here in the winter time.”

“I guess I understand that,” Yixing agrees and grabs a freshly washed pea pod out of the strainer that they were being kept in temporarily. “But does it have to be so soon?”

Before he can get an answer from his mother, she drops what she is doing to kneel down in a protective manner in front of Yixing. She begins to growl lowly and snarl at the back door of their home. “Mom?” Yixing questions, slightly concerned. He didn’t need for her to explain her action because he, too, can smell the humans about to invade their home. Moments after, the son of another alpha in their pack walked through the kitchen door, head hung low and reeking of shame. His mother didn’t budge though. If anything, one wrong move and she would shift entirely within seconds.

Followed by the beta, comes a young woman, a human holding close to her a small child who couldn’t be more than three. This confused Yixing because on the child, he could smell human and wolf mingling together as if coming from the same body. “You have thirty seconds to explain to me why you have humans in my house,” his mother threatens subtly, still kneeling, still protecting Yixing.

“I,” the beta stammers, he too standing in front of the two humans as Yixing’s mother was him. “I… She is… This is…”

“Mom,” Yixing begins, his eyes glowing red. “That is his son.”

His mom looks back at him, her eyes glowing a yellow. “Are you certain?”

Yixing nods. “I can see it, both the smell of human and wolf emitting from that child's body. He’s their son.”

Yixing’s mother looked back at the human and her son, then at the beta. Yixing knew his mother was angry, he could smell it on her and see it in the air. “Yixing, why don’t you take the child outside to play with the other children?” asks his mother, demanding rather. Yixing doesn’t answer as that would be the wrong thing to do in this situation. He just does as he is told. Bowing at the woman, he smiled as warmly as possible and reaches out for her child. Her instinct as a mother, just like his mother was to protect her son and he understood. In her position, he would want to protect his child from a stranger such as himself. “He’ll be in good hands, miss.” Yixing tells her, looking at the child with the gentlest of eyes so he wasn’t scaring him.

All though reluctant, the woman hands her son over to him, but not before she places a trembling kiss to his forehead and whispers to him a soft, “I love you.” Her son sniffled slightly, but doesn’t try to fight against Yixing’s hold on him in an attempt to get back to his mother. Yixing gives his mother one last look and she gestures for him to go. And he does, despite wishing that he could stay inside the house to watch what was to come.

Outside, children run around chasing one another, laughing and playing as if nothing is going just inside the pack leader's home. The thing with wolf pups is that they don’t have the abilities that the older wolves do. They can’t sense danger before it comes and it is because of that that they are so well protected. Hunters feed off of that innocence, as do other threats in the world. As Yixing approached the group of children, each of them stopped as soon as they noticed him coming and immediately began to run toward him with excitement. “Relax, guys. You don’t have to react to me like I’ve been gone for a month.” He tells them lightheartedly as he kneels down to their level with the human child sat on his knee. “Now, this little guy here needs someone to play with while his mommy and daddy handle important business with my mommy. Do you guys think that you can let him play with you too?”

One by one, each of them shouted cheerful yes’s and urged him to join them in what they were previously doing. “What is your name?” asks one of the children as he holds out his hand to the human child. “My name is Sejin.” The child just looks at him and leans into Yixing. Sejin frowns slightly and holds his hand out further. “We don’t bite, you know? We just want to play with you.”

The human child looks up at Yixing, who smiles back at him, and then looks back at Sejin. “Daniel,” he tells Sejin softly. Sejin smiles brightly and grabs a hold of Daniel’s hands, tugging on it gently, and urging him to go and play. Daniel, shyly however, pushes off of Yixing’s knee and lets Sejin lead him to where the group had been playing, only briefly looking back at Yixing. “We were playing tag, Daniel,” he hears Sejin tell him before they all start running around again. 

After feeling relieved that Daniel is off playing with the other children, Yixing turns his focus back on his mother and Daniel’s parents inside his house. He could feel the fear and anger building with each passing second inside that house; could hear the fear in Daniel’s parents’ voices and the anger in his mother’s. The situation wasn’t good, far from it. What Daniel’s parents did, what he is the object of, it’s not something easily forgiven, if at all. 

“It just happened!” Yixing hears the beta shout at his mother, “We work together and have gone out a few times to find that we really had a lot in common. It wasn’t serious at first, so I didn’t put much thought into telling anyone about us.”

“You didn’t put much thought into telling the pack leader, my husband, that you were fucking some human in your free time?” his mother retorts, shouting just as loudly as the beta. “Did you even consider your pack during all of this time? Did you even think about the danger that you could potentially be putting all of us in?”

“She is completely harmless,” the beta defends. “Even her family.”

“Did you even meet her family?” There was a long pause, too long, and for a brief minute, Yixing sort of felt bad for the beta and the human. “You didn’t even think to personally make sure that her family is harmless?”

“Well she has told me about them and they seem harmless…”

The laughter that filled the house sent shivers down Yixing’s spine. This was not going to end well for them, not at all. Yixing takes a moment to look for Daniel and he spots him running around trying to catch the other children. It made Yixing sad, if he were to be honest. That kid has no idea of the mess he has been brought into and there is nothing anyone can do or is willing to do to save him. The only hope that he has is his parents at this point. “It is utterly amazing how daft you are,” his mother tells him once she has stopped laughing. “This woman could be involved with hunters, could even be a hunter, and you just fucked her without looking into her background.”

There was another long pause that turned into just pure silence and Yixing was almost tempted to move closer to the house in order to find out why. But he didn’t have to because the beta broke the silence. “Are you involved with hunters somehow?” the beta asks, this directed at the human. He didn’t catch a response, but the reaction from his mother said plenty. 

“Get out of my house,” comes his mother terrifyingly calm.

“We came to you because we have nowhere else to go,” the beta says frantically. “Her parents don’t know about out relationship or of our son. This is the only place I thought of that we’d be safe. Please, Mrs. Zhang!”

“I am not going to risk the lives of this pack to protect your mistake.”

Yixing felt terrible for how his mother was treating them, but he didn’t think she was wrong either. The beta was asking a lot of his mother and to agree to protect them would be risking all of the packs lives. If he had been his mother, they would have been gone the minute that they had stepped through the front door. His mother, despite the current situation, has a habit of hearing people out before such decisions are made. She considers the options and chooses what is best for the pack. For a situation such as this one, she considered nothing. She couldn’t. Protecting a human, much less one involved with hunters would bring nothing but trouble.

“Why are you being like this, Mrs. Zhang?” asks the beta who seemed to be recognizing his defeat by the sound of his voice. 

Instead of words, the beta received a loud roar in response, a wolf’s roar, his mother’s roar. “Shit!” Yixing curses under his breath and makes a dash for the house. It was never good when someone had made his mother so angry that she shifted into her wolf form. His mother’s wolf is a dangerous one, a wolf that not too many people have said that they could take in a fight. Her wolf was as white as winter snow and looked seemingly weak, but she can pack one hell of a bite if the wrong person were to be on the other end of it. When he gets inside the house, the human had been backed into the wall with the beta standing in front of her as his mother inches towards them, snarling and showing teeth. “Mom,” he shouts at her to grab her attention, which doesn’t seem to do anything. “Mom stop!”

To say that Yixing was thankful that she stopped because of him would have been great, but unfortunately, she didn’t stop because of him. She didn’t shift back either, something had her head tilted in question distracting her from that. It made Yixing question what she was hearing or what she was smelling, so he tapped back into his wolf senses, breathing in deeply and listening to the sounds going both inside and outside. What he heard were vehicles of multiple kinds; trucks, cars, even motorbikes. They were closing in on the farm, pulling up to the house one by one. What Yixing could smell was not more wolves, but more humans. Yixing looked back at his mother and immediately following her looks of question, fear filled her eyes. 

“You were followed,” Yixing spits at the beta and the human. “In searching for somewhere safe, you lead the bastards right to us. Not to mention the fact that they, too, probably know of your little mistake.”

“We were careful!” exclaims the beta. 

“Obviously not careful enough,” Yixing retorts. He gives his mom one last look, one that said what his mother was thinking. He was hugging her without making physical contact. He was telling her that he loved her without saying it because who knows what this intrusion could bring. Even if it brought nothing, he wanted his mom to know how much he loves her and how thankful he his to have her. “Go get your son and leave.”

“What?”

Yixing faces them, his heart racing. “If you don’t want your child to grow up without his parents, go get him and run before you are found. And run far, far away from here, leave the country if you have to. Keep your son safe.”

Both the human and the beta looked at him with uncertainty, but didn’t waste a second as they were rushing out of the house. The silence that they left behind was long, almost deafening. He could hear vehicles pulling up to the house and shutting off, he could hear the sounds of footsteps moving across gravel, he could hear the sound of weapons being drawn and loaded. “Dad would want me to say something, right now.” Yixing breaks the silence, his nails digging into the palms of his hands. “He would want me to act in his absence, as a pack leader, and handle the situation accordingly. But I don’t know how, mom. I don’t know what to say, or what to do, or how to act. All I can smell is pure hatred walking right for us and I am scared.”

His mother walks up beside him and nudges his right hand. Understanding, he relaxed his hand and let his hand run along her fur as she moved around to stand in front of him. She didn’t shift back, as the situation wasn’t safe enough to, but how she looked at him, said everything that he knew that she would already say. “Don’t provoke them, I know. Hear them out, I know that too. Offer solutions to whatever problem that brought them here. I know all of this, but what if they start shooting without bothering to talk like reasonable adults? We can’t protect everyone and dodge silver bullets. Hell, we wouldn’t be worth shit if they decided to bring wolfsbane infused bullets or weapons.” Silver bullets were hell on a wolf’s body, but wolfsbane infused ammo and weapons? It would kill the wolf pups if the hunters wanted to be that cruel.

“Where is the pack leader?” comes a man’s voice, loud and threatening. “I want to speak to the pack leader right now!”

Yixing swallow hard and knelt down in front of his mother. He looked at her, his eyes filling with tears that threatened to spill with each passing second. “Mama…” He whispers to her and wraps his arms around her neck, nuzzling his face into her fur has he held onto her tightly. She whined softly and rested her head against his for nothing but a brief moment. And he understood. They didn’t have time to let their emotions overtake them, they had to do what they needed to keep the situation from getting out of control. So Yixing pulls away from his mother and stands back up, drying his eyes and gathering himself before he heads out of the house. The last thing that he wanted to do was let the hunters see how afraid he was.

It doesn’t take him long to put up the facade he needed to face the hunter with and as soon as he is sure that he is ready, he walks outside. Oh how deafening the tension and the silence was as he walks out onto the porch. Dozens of eyes were staring at him, glaring at him with pure disgust and hate. It honestly made him sick to his stomach. A few feet behind the crowd of hunters stood the wolf pups semi-hidden behind a wall of wolves in human form and those just now completing the shift. Yixing knew that they weren’t protected, even as the rest of the pack guarded them, they weren’t protected. He would have to get them to safety first. “Aren’t you a little young to be the pack leader?” a man says, one he recognizes as the one that had been shouting before. “Or have wolves been changing the rules in packs lately?”

“My father isn’t home as of yet, so you’ll have to settle for me instead.” Yixing answers him calmly, trying his damnedest to not stutter once.

“I came here to talk to the pack leader, not some wanna-be trying to make his daddy proud.”

“When he isn’t here, I stand in as the pack leader.”

There was a long silence, and then everyone started laughing. Yixing didn’t see the humor in what he had said. Ever since he came of age, he took his mother’s place as the stand in for when his father wasn’t here to handle things himself. It was to prepare him for the more permanent position as the pack leader. “You gotta be shittin’ me?” the man asks rhetorically. “There ain’t no way in hell that you, with a small body of a child, stand in for the pack leader.”

Yixing was getting angry with every passing second and every word that came out of the guy’s mouth. Beside him, Yixing’s mother now stood, growling lowly. He could sense her boiling anger and wavering strength to not tear into someone. “What is your reason for trespassing on my family’s land?”

Everyone settles down and it goes silent. The guy holds his gun at his hip and takes a few steps forward. “To put it simply, I’m here for the bastard that cursed my daughter with an abomination.”

Yixing looks past him towards the other kids, not spotting the beta or his child anywhere near the others. He looks back at the man and shifts his weight to his left side. “I think you have the wrong pack,” Yixing tells him, his fingers brushing over his mother’s fur, something he often did for comfort. “There isn’t a wolf here that goes anywhere near humans.”

“That’s funny,” he responds, laughing lightly, “Because I am almost certain that my daughter has been calling a number that I tracked all the way here.”

Yixing was under the impression that Daniel’s parents were in hiding and now on the run from these people. Why or how else does he know where they have been? “Well as you can see, we don't have any humans here beside you people.” Yixing catches a guy just coming up around a red pickup truck, out of the corner of his eye. He was aiming a gun at him, or so it seemed. His mother didn’t seem to notice or if she did, she didn’t care. “You can take your friends and leave now.”

Some of them laughed again, while the guy that mostly spoke to him, remained completely silent. His eyes went from Yixing’s to his mother and then back again. Yixing’s eyes, however, were focused on the eyes of the wolf pups who were desperately clinging to the legs of those standing in front of them to protect them. He felt sick knowing that they had to witness this, even if it hadn’t gotten violent. But that was just it, Yixing couldn’t be sure that it wouldn’t get violet. He wasn’t sure of what this guy or any of the others were going to do in the next five minutes from now, and if they did anything at all, he would have to make sure that those wolf pups were out of harm's way.

“You know that that isn’t going to happen, I can see it in your eyes,” the guy tells him after everyone else quiets down. He takes a few steps closer to Yixing, weapon secured tightly in his hand. “You know how this is going to end, don’t you? I predict you knew exactly what was going to happen the moment you caught our scent, heard out vehicles approaching your home. I can see it clearly on your face.”

“You don’t know anything about me.”

“I know that you are just as afraid as the kids hiding behind those bunch over there. I know that this is a lot bigger than you and you just can’t handle the presence of us on your land. I know that that wolf right there wants nothing more than to rip me a new ass, but hasn’t because she doesn’t have the balls to, much less the strength. And that is the thing with your kind. You go on about being these impeccably independent animals, capable of holding their own out there in the big, bad world, but in reality? You are just all bark and no bite.”

He didn’t know what triggered it, his violent tendencies. He was calm, he would swear it to anyone that had asked him. But his fist had darted out and it had met the guy’s face with such force that the pain radiated up his arm from the impact. He watched as the guy stumbled backwards and rubbed at it face. For a moment, Yixing felt proud of himself. His pack, especially his mother was being insulted and he stood up for them. His father would be proud, had he been here right now. He would have also done a lot worse had it been him that heard the insults flying from the guy’s mouth. His feeling proud didn’t last long, however. It was no thanks to his actions that had caused chaos to unleash. There weren’t any more insults, not idle chatter, no looks or laughter. There was just action, more and more action, and it started with his mother.

It was after the guy took a swing of his own and managed to bust Yixing’s lip pretty good. His mother couldn’t just stand idly by any longer and watch her son get hurt like that, not by a hunter. She lunged at the guy's leg and latched on with her canines. He shouted in pain and tried to shake her off, but it was no good. Her hold on him was good and she would do anything but let go. “Call the bitch off or I swear to god!” shouts the guy to Yixing, who was focusing on the others around them, making sure no one joined in to save their leader.

“What do you expect a wolf to do when you are harming one of their own?” asks Yixing, smirking.

It went on like that for a good thirty seconds, his mother sinking her teeth further into the guy’s leg and him trying to shake her off. It did stop though. His mother did let go, but it was done so in such a horrific manner that made Yixing want to vomit at the sight of it all. The guy aims his gun, his chest heaving in result to the heavy panting that he was doing, and he fires it. It makes Yixing’s heart stop and the world around him spin in circles. His mother’s body dropped, her teeth still attached, but clearly not as hard. “Fucking mut,” the guy spits out, kicking his mother off of him, her body being tossed to the side of him.

Across from where they stood, the wolves were caught between wanting to attack and protecting the wolf pups. The wolves who weren’t in wolf form quickly shifted to further provide either aid in attacking or protection for the wolf pups. Yixing was impressed by their ability to do more than he was at the moment because all he could do was stare at his mother’s lifeless body and watch as the blood poured slowly from her wound. 

“I think he’s going to cry now,” the guy laughs briefly. “Do you guys see the tears in his eyes? I think I just killed the kid’s mom. What a shame that is.”

Yixing didn’t have the voice to respond to the taunts he was being thrown, and if you were to ask him if he cared to do so, he would answer that he didn’t. Responding to things such as that is pointless and solves nothing. It just feeds them, makes them want to do it even more, and at this point, it was obvious to Yixing that words weren’t going to be enough to stop these people. No. He was going to have to act, and act quickly. So he closes his eyes and breathes in deeply, exhaling shortly after. All though he is in control of shifting, and more in control of his wolf, it doesn’t mean anything if he tries to attack while an emotional wreck. He needed to get ahold of himself for the sake of those around him, most importantly the wolf pups. They are relying on him, the pack as a whole are relying on him right now. He needed to be smart about this, composed. He needed to attack with a clear head and not with one clouded by images of his mother’s dead body. 

“I’m going to give you ten seconds to remove yourselves from my property,” Yixing warns them. He opens his eyes which are now a vibrant mix of red and brown and looks directly at the guy who now stood firm and tall. He was challenging Yixing, Yixing was aware of that. He knows how hunters work, how they act, just by the stories he has heard and what he was taught. And as his father would have told him to, he accepted the challenge.

“Or what?” asks the guy far too daring.

Yixing didn’t hesitate a second about going into his wolf form. Actually, it was more like his wolf took over his body, deciding for him what was going to happen next. Yixing didn’t fight his wolf either, not even a little bit. He was all more than happy to let his wolf take the lead in this situation, let his wolf call the shots. And his wolf did, in record time, he notes. It happened faster than it normally does, his shift from human to wolf. What takes his wolf a good two and a half minutes, happened in less than sixty seconds. It was all due to sheer anger and hate for these humans, these hunters. Yixing and his wolf hate humans like this, humans that think it’s funny to kill wolves for the hell of it. Yixing roared at the group of them as his shift from human to wolf completed. His eyes followed each and every single movement made by the hunters. Darting from one to the other, but always staying on the one that killed his mother.  _ “What do you want us to do?” _ asks one of the members of the pack in wolf form, Jongdae, telepathically.  _ “Whatever you decide, we will follow.” _

Yixing wanted to rip every single one of them to shreds until not one of them were left standing. He wanted to murder them like his mother was murdered. He wanted them to pay.  _ “Protect the pups,” _ Yixing answers.  _ “They can’t protect themselves, so they need someone to do it for them.” _

_ “What about you?” _ asks Jongdae, his words dripping with concern.  _ “Who is going to protect you?” _

Yixing never actually took into consideration the feelings of the people he was fighting for. It’s not that he did so on purpose, it’s not like that at all. His first thought wasn’t about himself. It wasn’t about how he was going to keep the hunters from hurting him or killing him. His thoughts were about the wolf pups, his mother, where his father could be and if he was safe. Making sure that the willing and able were safe. Making sure that everyone made it out of this mess alive. Regardless of whose fault this was and why, it was doesn’t matter at this point. In fact, it didn’t matter at all. If hunters came after his kind, no matter what the reason, no matter to what pack they belong, they fight for them.

_ “Don’t worry about me. I can take care of myself. Besides, it will do nobody any good if they are trying to protect the pups and protect me.”  _

He could feel Jongdae’s uncertainty even more so now than before. He could feel everyone’s uncertainty that he could handle himself. Not that he blamed them, to be honest. He wasn’t so sure that he was certain of himself either. As a few more people shifted, Yixing dug his nails into the wood of the porch in ready for his next move. It had to be strategic, well thought out. If he just carelessly attacked at random, it could get himself killed, or his pack members killed. He ordered the lot to protect the wolf pups, to try and get them off of the farm and into the woods. Jongdae is first to answer words of understanding, others soon followed. He looked around at the other pack members standing by, wanting to help, but scared all as well.

He understood them, but they needed to do something. Standing around and just watching isn’t doing him any good. He had to tell them to act, protect themselves. This lack of the ability to communicate as a wolf to someone in human form is painfully annoying. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw the order he placed being acted out. It didn’t put his heart at ease, but it gave him less to worry about, knowing that the wolf pups were being lead to safety. 

_ “Yixing, look out!”  _ shouts Kyungsoo, a beta in which Yixing knows well. 

He didn’t know how he missed it, the person that somehow managed to make their way through his home and to the front door. Even his wolf would have caught a scent of someone in his house. Yixing looked back briefly to catch a glimpse of said person and the weapon in their hand. It was a knife, not too big, but big enough. What he could see of it anyways. The knife was coming for him, and coming for him quick. He managed to dodge it, but not enough to leave him unscathed. He took a flesh wound to his side, one that didn’t weaken him, but rather was a pain to deal with in a situation such as this. The person just stands there, a young man he notices, with wide eyes. He didn’t know what to do and Yixing could smell the fear pouring out of him. Yixing reacts before anyone has the chance to jump in and save the knife wielder, lunging at him and latching onto his arm. The screams coming from the boy was incredibly unnecessary as Yixing wasn’t piercing his skin. It was as if he were about to rip his arm off by the sound of it and Yixing was nowhere near close to biting through his skin let alone through tendons and bone.

“Get him off of me!” the boy yells at the other hunters. 

Seconds after the boy implicates for help, a fire is shot off toward Yixing. He felt the bullet graze his fur and land somewhere unknown to him. “Shit, I missed,” someone curses under their breath, genuinely. Yixing didn’t have time to gather his wits, he didn’t want to waste time. His wolf was screaming and Yixing let him take control. 

Yixing backtracked and darted inside the house after the boy that managed to wound him first. This made everyone that remained outside react and all hell broke loose. He could hear people shouting after him and after other wolves that have engaged in fighting. What else had been happening out there, he couldn’t say. His soul focus at the moment was the young boy running for his life through his house toward the back door. The boy would have made it too had he not tripped over his mother’s annoying creaking china cabinet that sits just beside the entrance to the kitchen. As his face meets wood flooring, Yixing slides to a stop just a couple feet away from him. His stance was guarding, his growl low. He watched the boy closely and listened as he groaned from the pain that he must have felt. 

The boy slowly rolls over onto his back and then just as slowly starts to get to his feet. Yixing allows him this, for he was raised better than to attack someone that is already down. The boy looks around for the knife he had and spotted it near the kitchen table. Yixing snarled at him as he attempts to retrieve it, warning him that he had better not. “Okay, okay. I won’t move.” The shakiness in the boy’s voice had gotten worse, increasingly so. “Just let me walk out of here, alright? Y-You can keep the knife. I never liked it anyway.”

Yixing took a few steps towards him, teeth showing, and his growl getting louder. “Don-Don’t come any closer, mut! I mean it! It will only get worse for you!” Yixing didn’t stop, he didn’t care to. He wanted this boy to pay for invading his home, invading his packs home, and he wasn’t going to stop until he has done so. He inched closer, wanting to corner the boy. He was no longer growling at this point, but the threat was still there. If he made an attempt to escape, Yixing would stop him.

_ “Yixing, it’s a mess out here! They aren’t out here to stop us, they are killing us!”  _ Jongdae’s voice came inside his head a frantic mess. Yixing looks back towards the front door to see bullets flying and bodies dropping to the ground. He looked back at the boy and roared at him at fearfully as possible. He didn’t want to let him go, but his pack needed him outside. Whether the boy took the hint or not, he didn’t know, but the boy did run as fast as he could out of the house and Yixing ran back out the front door.

  
  
  
  
  
  


Bodies were dropping one by one and Yixing never felt more like a failure than he did in this moment. He was trying to fight for his pack and his pack was trying to fight to survive, only they weren’t succeeding. Jongdae had been ordered to protect the wolf pups and only the wolf pups. Yixing had no choice but to order his best fighters to protect them. Kyungsoo had problems of his own, one of which Yixing didn’t blame him for.  _ “I can’t find her, Yixing, I can’t find Jungah. I need to find her, Yixing, she can’t defend herself right now.”  _

Jungah is an omega and Kyungsoo’s mate. Currently she is four months pregnant with his child and unable to fight with the pack. Not that she couldn’t handle herself because she definitely can. For the most obvious of reasons, it would be absurd to let her fight because it would be putting her baby at risk and not only will Yixing or anyone else in the pack not allow that, Kyungsoo would rather die than see her fighting in her current state.  _ “Kyungsoo, I’m sure that she is fine and safe. Just calm down and focus.”  _

_ “They are everything to me, Yixing! I can’t lose them, I won’t.”  _

Yixing understood him and what he was saying. His priority wasn’t on the pack anymore, it was on his family. If Yixing were in a similar situation and it was his mate, he would abandon the others as well to go off and search for her.  _ “I understand, Kyungsoo. Go find her and watch your back. Stay safe.” _ Kyungsoo thanked him over and over and quickly abandoned the others to go and search for Jungah.

After making sure that Kyungsoo safely got away, Yixing noticed movement in the trees a few yards away from the houses. It didn’t occur to him right away of the animal, wolf rather that was emerging from the woods. Even as he took notice of the jet black fur and the icy cold eyes and the way those eyes bore holes into him, it didn’t register as fast as it should have that it was his father that he was looking at. When it finally hit him that it was indeed him, the little boy in him wanted to run to his father and nuzzle into the softness of his fur and apologize over and over for letting this happen to the pack. But the sound of his father’s firm voice telling him to act like the man that he is and to focus on the lives still out there fighting to live filled his head. 

_ “We don’t have time to let our emotions get the best of us right now, Yixing. We need to protect who is left.” _

_ “Where have you been all this time that I’ve been trying- we’ve been trying?” _

_ “I felt the connection to your mother disappear and I knew something was wrong. I’m sorry that I wasn’t here sooner, son. But enough about that. Where are the pups?” _

Yixing pulled himself together as much as he could and told his father that as soon as hell broke loose, some of the pack took them to the woods and hid them as safely as possible, then came back to help fight with the others. His father wasn’t pleased about having to keep the pups safe to begin with, but Yixing could tell that he relaxed slightly at the mention of their safety. 

_ “About mama…” _

_ “I know son, and I don’t blame you. I’m sure she died protecting what was hers.” _

It made Yixing feel even worse knowing that he was the reason for his mother’s death, and that his father wasn’t blaming him for it. He was clearly so upset, it could be seen in his eyes.  _ “We are losing people, dad. Those that are left are tired or wounded and I-” _ He was tired as well. He had wounds of his own and he was physically getting weaker. He couldn’t keep fighting and neither could the others.

_ “Enough,”  _ his father tells him, his voice firm. _ “No more of this emotional mess you are showing me right now. I will take things from here, and as for you, go make sure that the pups are safe.” _

_ “But, dad…”  _ His father snapped at him and Yixing took a step back, whining softly. _ “I understand, dad. I will go see to it that the pups are safe.” _

Yixing took off toward the trees, upon the order from his father telling him to run and not look back. It pained him to not stay by his father’s side and fight with him, but he was given orders by his father as the pack leader, not as his father. He had no choice but to listen to him. As he disappeared into the woods, his father’s voice filled his head again, this time much softer and warmer. _ “No matter where you go through life, know that your mother and I have always loved you and will always love you. We couldn’t have raised a more perfect son, and I am proud to call you just that. I love you, Yixing, your mother loves you. Never forget that.”  _

Yixing stopped suddenly, just minutes away from where the pups had been placed for their safety, and looked back toward the direction of the house. He heard shouting from both human and wolf, sounds of war cries and sounds of pained cries. He couldn’t seem to catch a breath, couldn’t bring himself to move from the spot that he stood frozen. His father was saying his goodbyes. His father was out there, fighting with the intention of not coming back from it alive. His heart sank to his stomach when he stopped hearing anything. There weren’t any sounds of gunfire or wolves fighting for their lives. There was just a gentle breeze blowing and birds chirping. 

  
  
  
  
  
  
  


Once he composed himself enough to find a hidden sack filled with clothing and a pair of shoes, Yixing was off to find the place the pups were hidden. He fought with himself about going back to see what was or had happened back at his home. It was an actual struggle to keep from abandoning the pups. But his father wouldn’t have approved of him doing such a thing, not when he was the only one available to protect them. So he kept moving forward. It would have been easier to find the pups, had he been in his right mind to remember where it was said that they would be taken.

It wasn’t hard, however. His pack had a few hidden spots in the woods that they could run to if the weather was bad while either one of them were out traveling or hunting, or simply to hide in if they feared that they were being hunted. The first place was a small weathered down cabin that had been so entirely taken over by nature that anyone could walk passed it without realizing that it was there. Yixing himself has used this cabin a few times to take shelter from the rain while he was out on a hunt. It wasn’t the coziest place he has ever been in, but when it was needed, it did the trick.

As he walked inside the cabin, he could tell that it had recently been used, but not by the pups. There were ash covered logs in the fireplace that looked like they’ve been sitting there for a couple of days. On the small table near the fireplace was a plate with dried, crusted up food that started to mold. Beside it was a nearly emptied bottle of water. Whoever had been there previously, have long since left.

So he moved onto the next place he had in mind. It was a cave near a pond that is hardly ever used. This reason being because it leaves you vulnerable, susceptible to being stumbled upon by much larger, more viscous animals while you take time to rest. It’s more often used to clean up after a hunt before heading back home. Which it made sense to Yixing why the pups wouldn’t be there. They wouldn’t stand a chance by themselves, had they been placed there.

His only other option was he and his parent’s favorite camping spot. This spot took some time to get to on foot; about twenty minutes if you moved fast. It was great because it was a massive tree with a hollowed trunk that was almost perfect for a nature made tent. It was surrounded by many other things that nature has to offer the world. Plants, vines, fruit bushes, and herbs. All of them practically grew on top of the other, giving it the best wall to hide whomever is using it for safety. 

As he approached the tree, he immediately knew that someone, multiple someones’ were there. He could hear fear filled chatter, soft crying, and the smell of fresh fruit lingering in the air. “It has to be them,” he whispered to himself before crouching down, and slowly making his way to the opening of the hallowed tree. Then the noise falls silent, which doesn’t surprise Yixing in the slightest. If this group were in fact the pups, the oldest of them would be listening, telling the others to keep quiet so that they can be ready for whoever walks up on them. He didn’t want to scare them more than they already were, so he calls out to them, making it adamant that he is who he says he is, that he is there to get them. 

“How can we be sure that you are who you say you are?” This could only be the oldest, Yixing assumes. Although he can sense the fear, he can feel the determination to protect as best as the young pup was able to provide. “How can we be sure?”

Yixing understood their hesitation to believe him, he didn’t blame them one bit. “There is something about me, something that often goes unnoticed. The only ones that have yet to catch it are the lot of you because you are incredibly talented when it comes to noticing the smallest of things. When I am hurt or upset, I tend to pick at the loose skin on my fingers. I do it so much that I leave sores on my fingers because of it. It’s a horrible habit, a very horrible habit.”

The oldest of the group comes out into view, his hair sticking to his forehead. He was sweating, cheeks flushed. “Yixing?” calls the boy, to which Yixing nodded in confirmation. The next thing he knows, he had a dozen young pups run toward him, throwing themselves at him in attempts to hug him. The oldest was the first to make contact, snuggling into Yixing to hide his tears. “I didn’t think anyone was coming back for us, Yixing. I thought that we were all alone.”

Yixing tries to calm him down while comforting the others. “I promised to protect all of you, and that is what I am going to do.”

The young boy lifts his head up and looks at Yixing with tear filled eyes. “How are you going to protect us? We can’t go back home, and we don’t have any money.”

Yixing had been given a name and an address for a situation like this, and he never questioned his parents about it. All he knew was that in an event that leaves the pups or even himself unable to return home, he was to seek help from this pack. “I already have it figured out, don’t you worry.”

  
  
  
  
  
  
  


“Thank you for taking them,” Yixing tells his new found friend, Jackson. He watched as all the pups were taken into a large house that could easily be mistaken for a mansion. “I didn’t know much about you or your pack enough to know what I was getting those pups into. I didn’t even think that you would still help us.”

Jackson patted Yixing’s arm lightly. “It’s not a problem, man. My dad has been friends with your parents for a long time. We would do anything for them as they would us.”

He didn’t know Jackson or his pack well, but his first impressions of them made him feel better about trusting them with his life as well as the pups. “I’m sorry that they couldn’t personally be here.”

Jackson nodded and rested a hand on Yixing’s shoulder. “I’m really sorry about your parents, Yixing. I didn’t see them leaving the world like that, much less like your mother did.”

“Thanks,” Yixing answered, looking away from Jackson as he began to shed silent tears. 

“We have plenty of room in the house. Why don’t you stay for a night or two? I’m sure it would do the body good. Plus, my mother makes the best sweet bread in this town. You have to try it.”

Yixing was grateful for the hospitality, he truly was, but he couldn’t stay. He didn’t know where he was going to go or what life had planned for him, but staying here wasn’t part of it. He’d feel like a burden to this pack. He just wanted a safe place for the pups to stay, possibly grow up in. That’s all he wanted from these people. “I don’t think I can stay,” he answers softly. He looks back at the house, watching as the setting sun rested over the peeling paint. “I think it’s best that I figure things out on my own, you know? I just want them to be happy from this point on, or at least live well. They don’t need me as a constant reminder of what they no longer have. It’s better this way.”

“I understand,” Jackson tells him without pushing the matter. He dropped his hand to his side and placed both of them in his pockets. “Take some food with you at least. We also have a car around back; used to be dad’s, but he can no longer drive it. I’d be happy to give you some money and a few other things to survive until you figure out where you are going. It isn’t much, but it’ll get the job done.”

Yixing didn’t know how to thank Jackson. Giving a complete stranger things without asking for anything in return… It was overwhelming, but it didn't make him cry. It made him miss his mother and the warm fruit pies she would make for the entire pack. He wanted to go hunting with his dad and race to find the best catch. He wanted to lead in his father’s place, making a name for himself as an alpha, gain his own respect within their pack. He wanted to hug his mother one last time, run his fingers through her fur, breathe in the fresh cut pine and spring flowers that seemed to follow her everywhere. “Thank you again, Jackson. Really. Thank you.”

  
  
  
  


∞

  
  
  


As the years passed by, Yixing found finding his own way in life a lot harder than he had seemed at the time. Keeping a steady job was hell, what with his constant need to take sick days. He had settled for doing odd jobs that ranged from a couple of hours to a couple of weeks. The pay was unpredictable, but he was able to feed himself and keep a roof over his head. He moved around a lot during this time, even now that he can support himself pretty well. He wasn’t sure if hunters were following him and he wasn’t trying to stay in one place too long to find out.

He was twenty-seven now; had a decent apartment and flexible job that wasn’t so demanding. He could work from home and didn’t have to check in with his boss but a couple times a week. The pay kept him well fed, the lights on, and he could go out a few times a month to treat himself. He doesn’t though, or at least not often. He may be living comfortable, but he isn’t safe from those that want to kill him. Not by a long shot. 

Now, for example. He had been keeping tabs on a young wolf that had been going to Seoul National University, so he had been coming around campus to make sure that he wasn’t being outed by his own wolf. Thankfully, the young wolf had been staying with a friend and their family, people which were also wolves themselves, and he no longer needed to worry about them. Unfortunately for Yixing, a group of local hunters have been following the young wolf around as well and to keep him from harm, Yixing exposed himself. It was a stupid thing for him to do, considering how well he had been doing when it came to hiding himself for the past seven years, but he wasn’t going to let a young kid’s life get ruined because some hunters wanted to take him out. 

“I think he went this way!” shouts one of the hunters from around the corner that Yixing ran down. 

Yixing had managed to steer the hunters away from the young wolf, but in light of doing so, he became their next target. He knew these streets really well. So well in fact, that he could tell you what was going on five blocks away from where he had been running. He made it a priority to know these streets, know what businesses were on which street. Where each bus stop was and what numbers stopped there. He even went as far as to figure out what places had the most traffic coming in. It was meaningless to know all this, but if came a time like this where he was put into a situation that required him to think and move quickly in his surroundings, he could proudly say that he was able too. 

The only thing he could never succeed in figuring out was the people. For instance… An older woman, who he would guess to be in her late thirties, had walked out of the back of a building with two garbage bags in hand. He could yell at her to move, but he didn’t want to startle her. He also didn’t want to sneak up on her and risk her attacking him thinking that he was attacking her. Judging by the distance the hunters are, he could slow down and approach her calmly. And he does. “Excuse me, miss?”

The woman turns around after placing the garbage in the large bin. “Yes?”

Yixing scratches at his next lightly and bows slightly. “I’m sorry to bother you like this. My car broke down and my phone is dead. Could I possibly use your phone?”

It impressed him, how calm she was about a stranger approaching her like this, but he could still smell the fear coming off of her. So he takes a few steps back from her and and holds his hands up. “I just need a tow. If you can just call a tow truck for me, I don’t even have to come inside.”

She hesitated, and he wished that she hadn’t. “I’ll go make a call.”

“Thank you,” he answers with a quick bow. He smiled kindly until she walks back inside the building, and then he began to run again. The woman definitely hesitated longer than Yixing hoped for her to because the hunters had gained on him, much to his annoyance. “Aren’t you people tired yet?”

The hunters shout for him to stop, and some even took a few shots at him. He dodges them with a struggle considering his limited space to move. Luckily though, he made it to the other street, the street that the library was located on. It wasn’t that late, so the library should still be open. He hoped that is.

  
  
  
  
  
  
  


The library was always best at this time of night. There were little to no people in here, which made for the perfect environment to study in. However, it was also a distraction, at least for Lee Eunsook. Even though she is always sure to get her homework done for all of her classes, the silence lead her mind in different directions. She would either browse for a book to read, go through her phone, or she would begin to doodle in her notebooks. She wasn’t a terrible student, that was the one thing that she was far from. She was just horrible at keeping focus on matters more important. 

“Finally,” Eunsook drags out with a sigh. She closes her Psychology book and leaned back in her chair. She stretches for the greatest twenty seconds of her life before she gathers the borrowed books to take back to their rightful spot. She steps back into her white converse lazily and slowly drags her feet along to the bookshelves. “I can’t wait to eat proper food~”

Minutes after Eunsook put all of the books back, she was seated at the table again to place all of her things back into her bag. She didn’t hate having so much that she had to carry, she just hated that there were so many classes she needed to take just to become a therapist. Half of her classes didn’t even seem necessary, but she wasn’t going to complain to anyone about it. Her parents are paying her way through university. 

As she shoved her pencil pouch into her bag, she pause at what sounded like the front doors to the library opening and shutting. “No one should be here,” she thought aloud. It wasn’t true, though. It wasn’t entirely late, and there were at least three other people that she knew of on the second floor. It was just odd for anyone to be coming in now being that the library is closing in less than an hour. “Why are you even concerning yourself with this?” she questions herself. 

Leaving the matter alone, she reaches for her folder with her finished work and slides that into her bag as well. After she had everything in her bag, she wondered if the library had any good movies in stock. It’s been ages since she used her DVD player, and she was really feeling like a sappy American romance movie. So she puts her shoes on properly, making sure to tie them securely, and head towards the movies with her bag in hand.

  
  
  
  
  
  
  


Yixing staggered into the library with his hand over the flesh wound on his right arm that a bullet caused by grazing it. It hurt like a bitch, but Yixing couldn’t care less at the moment. He needed to hide long enough for the hunters to give up and leave. He looked around, ignoring the frightened librarian at the front desk, and heads towards the media section. This should be a good place to hide considering hardly anyone ever buys physical copies of movies anymore. If it wasn’t watched in a theater, it was bought digitally. Yixing personally loved buying physical copies of movies. There was just something nostalgic about it. 

Yixing straightened himself up as much as his body would allow and tried to walk the remaining distance to the media section as balanced as he was able to. When he got there, he dropped quietly behind the tallest of all the shelves there. He dropped his hand to his shirt and lifted it to reveal a gunshot wound. “It must’ve only been a regular bullet,” he thought out loud. The wound hurt, really hurt, but once he took the bullet out, he would start to heal immediately afterwards. The wound that concerned him the most was the one on his arm. He knew that the bullet that grazed him had to have been laced with wolfsbane, but he didn’t know was how much of it actually poisoned him.

“Oh my god,” shouts a voice slightly from the other end of the aisle way. Yixing looks over at a woman with her platinum blonde and pink tipped hair falling out ever so slowly out of the hair tie that she had it, and winced as he got back to his feet. She took a step back, stumbling over her own two feet.”I don’t know what in the hell happened to you, dude, but don’t come near me.”

“I’m not going to hurt you,” Yixing defended. 

“How in the fuck am I supposed to trust a wounded stranger who took shelter in a library?” 

Yixing sighed. “You need to stop yelling before they find me.”

“Oh so there are more of you?” questioned the woman who was now starting to raise her voice. “If I get murdered in this library because of you, I-”

Yixing grabbed her by the arm and pulled her further into the aisle. He wrapped an arm around her neck, put his hand over her mouth, and held her against him. He was thankful in times like these that hunters didn’t have heightened senses like wolves do. He couldn’t very well have this woman yelling at him and pointing out where he was. Hunters are killers, not idiots. “Just shut the hell up for five minutes, would you?” 

“I know how to defend myself, buddy,” she spoke with her voice muffled. “I will not hesitate to kick your ass all over this library.”

“If you really knew how to break my hold on you, you would have done so already.”

Judging by the silence afterwards, he was right, but he could also have been wrong. Who was he to assume things about a stranger that he most likely will never meet again after tonight? As they stood there in silence, Yixing listened as footsteps came closer and closer toward the media section. He felt the strong urge to protect the both of them from the hunters walking toward them, and it made him pray his damnedest for his wolf to give him this single moment to not shift. 

“I don’t think anyone else is here,” shouted one of the hunters furthest away from them. “Let’s just go.”

The one that had come far too close to finding him had hesitated for a few moments. Yixing had taken notice of how his heartbeat had slowed down to normal and how his shoulders relaxed beneath the heavy leather jacket he was wearing. He was backing away from them and Yixing couldn’t be more relieved. “If he isn’t here, he is long gone by now. Let’s just leave it and call it a night.”

When he was sure that the hunters had left, he let go of the woman, and let her step away from him. It was more of a dart, but he couldn’t careless. He dropped to the floor again, no longer having any energy to hold himself together. “Listen, I don’t know who the hell you are…” She stopped mid-sentence after seeing a nearly unconscious Yixing at her feet. “Oh my god- you’re hurt!”

“Thanks for noticing,” Yixing breathed with heavy sarcasm. He leaned back against the bookshelf and lifted his shirt up. He winced as he tried to see if he could feel for the bullet. He didn’t feel anything, which unfortunately for him, meant that he was going to need to be cut into to get the bullet out. He looks back up at the woman as she wraps her pink faded platinum blonde hair behind her ears and takes notice of the slight discoloration of her right middle and pointer finger. “Can I use your lighter?”

“What makes you so sure that I have one?” she asked defensively. Yixing just looks at her and she sighs. “I have one, but I don’t smoke anymore.”

“I didn’t ask if you smoked. I just need the damn lighter.”

“Okay, okay. No need for you to get nasty.” She reaches into a small pocket on her bag and pulls out a solid black lighter to hand to him. “What happened to you anyways?”

Yixing ignored her and pulled a small pocket knife out of his pants pocket. He lit the lighter and ran the blade of the knife over the flame. When he was sure it was hot enough, he gave the lighter back to its owner and turned his face away from her. He pleaded for this to not trigger a shift, desperately pleaded. That was the last thing he needed; to trigger a shift that his stubborn ass wolf won’t let him come out of. “If this is going to bother you, I suggest you leave.” Whether she listened or not, Yixing couldn’t tell because he spared her no time before he pressed the scorching blade to his gaping bullet wound.

  
  
  
  
  
  
  


Eunsook did not sign up for this. She did not sign up to be taking care of some guy that was bleeding all over the backseat of her car. “Curse my kind personality,” she mumbled under her breath as she pulls into the nearest emergency room parking lot. She had one hell of a time getting the guy out of the library, much more so into her car. How she managed all of this without getting any of his blood on her is beyond her ability to comprehend. She just knew that leaving him to his own demise was not an option.

After pulling up in front of the emergency room entrance, she quickly got out of the car, and ran as fast as she could through the automatic opening doors. “I need help,” she shouts. “I have a man that has been shot in the back seat of my car. He is unconscious and bleeding badly despite trying to stop it himself. I swear the man is crazy!”

A couple of nurses come rushing toward her and the one to reach her first asked, “Where is your car?”

“It’s just out front,” she answers. 

The nurse urges the other to grab a transport stretcher and have a few male nurses follow them outside. Eunsook just stood there in the middle of the waiting area watching as everyone moved around her. She realized that she no longer needed to be there. She no longer needed to see to it that this stranger was taken care of. So why was she frozen in place? Why couldn’t she move?

“Excuse me miss, but I need to get some information from you.” Eunsook snapped back to reality and focused her attention on a young woman who was no taller than herself. “What is the patient's name?”

Eunsook never heard of his name. “I don’t know.”

The nurse assures her that it’s fine to not know and marks it down on the clipboard. “Can you tell me about how he got hurt?”

Eunsook couldn’t answer that either. “I just know that he has a wound on his arm and a gunshot wound on his stomach. He passed out after trying to cauterize it and hasn’t come to since then.”

“So you wouldn’t know if he has any family then?”

Eunsook shakes her head. “No, sorry.”

The nurse gives her a warm smile. “It’s okay, hun. You aren’t the first person to know nothing about a patient. We will take care of him. If you want to take a seat and wait while we handle things with him, you can.”

Eunsook didn’t know why she nodded at the nurses offer, or why she actually sat down to wait, but there she was. She watched nurses pass by, still uncertain of why she was staying there for a man she quite literally just met. A few seconds more passed and in came the same nurses that had rushed out of the hospital with the man on their stretcher. He looked even worse than he did when she managed to get him in her car. Maybe even a bit paler as well. “What did I get myself into?”

  
  
  
  
  
  
  


Yixing couldn’t explain in words what he felt like in this moment. He didn’t feel pain, sick from the wolfsbane, or weak from blood loss. He didn’t feel a single thing. He turned his head to his left at the sound of a beeping. Where was he? He opened his eyes and squeezed them shut again when painful bright lights greeted him. “What the hell?”

“Mr. Nameless, you are finally awake.”

Yixing opened his eyes again and followed the voice to a male doctor in a standard white coat. “Where am I?” He looked around at the similar white walls with medical equipment attached to them. What was he doing in a hospital?

“I don’t think I need to tell you, do I?” Yixing just looked at him and the doctor laughed. “Relax before you do something to tear those stitches. Not that you really needed them to begin with.”

“Why am I in the hospital?”

The doctor comes around to the side of the bed and checks his vitals. “A young woman brought you in. Those were some serious wounds you had, you know. The gunshot wound was especially worrisome.”

Yixing forgot about that woman that he ran into at the library. He didn’t even understand why she would be compelled to take a complete stranger to the hospital. She could have just left him there. “Wait,” Yixing paused, it finally hitting him that he was in a hospital. “I can’t be here. I need to leave.”

“You aren’t going anywhere in this condition.” Yixing goes to get up, having removed the IV from his arm before doing so, and is stopped by surprisingly strong arms on his shoulders. “I told you that you aren’t going anywhere in this condition. You have lost a lot of blood and are physically in no condition to be travelling. So just lay back down and relax.”

Yixing doesn’t fight him this time. He wasn’t entirely sure why it was, but he trusted his life in this doctor’s hands. While the doctor went through his chart, very obviously pretending to be anyways, he had a nurse come in to administer a fresh IV and change his bandages. Once she was done with what was asked of her, she spoke with the doctor, and then left the room. Yixing looked down at the IV and wondered briefly what he was being given through it. 

“I can’t stay here any longer than I have been,” he repeats, his eyes still fixed on the IV. 

“I understand, but you also need to recover from the blood loss.”

“You don’t understand anything about me!”

The doctor looks up from his chart to give Yixing a sympathetic look. “I understand more than you think.” Yixing wanted to protest, wanted so strongly to argue with this man because he didn’t understand anything about Yixing or what Yixing had been going through, dealing with up until this point. But all of that fizzled out when the doctor’s eyes flashed the same mix of vibrant red and brown that his does. Making his point, his eyes return to normal, and he closes the chart. He helped himself to a chair and placed the chart on an empty space of Yixing’s bed. “Don’t look at me like a puppy that had been caught peeing in the house. It can’t be that surprising that a werewolf works as a doctor.”

Was this guy even listening to himself while he talked? 

“It isn’t exactly heard of, you know?” asked Yixing rhetorically. “We try to hide ourselves from potential situations that could out us. Why in the hell would you become a doctor? That is the most insane idea i’ve ever had the fucking pleasure of seeing.”

“Is it really, though? I mean, take tonight for example. You were lightly poisoned with wolfsbane, nothing too serious, but visible enough for the emergency room to question. That would cause blood to be drawn and tested, and then guess what follows?”

Yixing closed his eyes briefly, feeling the imaginary pain that would eventually become really had that happened. “I’d become a test subject.”

“Which brings us to the gunshot wound.” He moves from a proper sitting position to a slouch. “How long do you think that it will take these nurses to realize that those stitches weren’t actually necessary? One of these nurses are bound to figure out that the only thing keeping you in this bed is your blood loss.”

Yixing knew that, which is why he never made it a mission to come to the hospital let alone the emergency room. “How do you survive in this environment? How do you manage your wolf as a doctor? I mean, the shit that you see, the people that come in here. How do you make it as a doctor?”

“I have a beautiful wife and two amazing children that depend on me, and this job to take care of them. I also have one hell of a pack that has my back in times that make it hard for me in this field.”

Yixing went quiet and the doctor didn’t question it. It was no surprise that he would have a family, a pack to help him through moments that he can’t help himself. It was actually kind of nice to imagine even though it wasn’t rightfully his to imagine. It made him miss his own pack and his own family. An image of his mother smiling warmly at him flashed in his head and he looked away from the doctor in attempts to hide his teary eyes.

“Is it hard for you?” asked the doctor cautiously. 

“Is what hard for me?” answered Yixing.

“Being separated from your family and your pack.”

He didn’t want to answer that, he didn’t know how to answer it. He hasn’t talked about his family or his pack at all expect when Jackson would call him every so often to see how he is doing and to let him know how the kids are doing. He just lays there without saying anything because he didn’t want to have a mental breakdown in front of a complete stranger that he doesn’t even know the name of. And the doctor didn’t push him either. Yixing was thankful for it.

The doctor gets to his feet and gathers up Yixing’s chart. “Just give us until the morning after you’ve eaten a crappy hospital breakfast. I’ll personally come by and see to it that you are well enough to leave. Okay?”

Yixing hums in response and the doctor patted at his leg. Without another word, Yixing was left alone with the deafening sound of his own thoughts. It didn’t take him much longer after that to fall asleep. And when he did, it was nothing but the nightmares of his families slaughtering.

  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  


That morning, just as the doctor had told him, he was released from the hospital. He still felt weak just as he was told that he would. “ _ Nothing a few glasses of orange juice and a good day of rest wouldn’t fix.” _ The doctor had told him before handing him a small packet of papers containing, in detail, of what to do at home. “Like this is necessary,” Yixing mumbled to himself as he tossed the packet into the garbage bin outside the hospital doors. He reached into his pocket for his wallet and pulled out some change for the bus. He didn’t take the bus often because he had a vehicle. So having a bus pass wasn’t needed. It was nice to ride on, however. 

As he stood in wait for the bus to arrive at the bus stop a few blocks down, he thought back to the conversation that he had with the doctor. “Who even calls themselves a werewolf anymore?” he thought aloud. It really was strange for anyone to call themselves a  _ werewolf _ nowadays. It’s been ages since anyone as used it. Wolves, much like his father, hated what society thought of them, even more so when they looked up to entertainment’s idea of a wolf. With  _ werewolf _ comes vicious, brutal beasts who prey on anything and anyone. Films and television have this idea that wolves aren’t human, aren’t capable of sound thought, aren’t even able to maintain relationships with anyone. So the fact that there are people who still use the term bothers Yixing.

A voice pulled Yixing from his thoughts, the same voice that belong to the woman that he ran into last night. “Here you are!” she shouted breathlessly. “When they said that you left I freaked out for an embarrassingly two and a half minutes before I realized that you actually left.”

Yixing sighed. He thought he had gotten rid of her. “That  _ is _ what happens when you are released from the hospital.” When he saw how his comment actually pained her, against the judgement from the voices screaming in his head, he offered to buy her breakfast. “Listen. I was going to buy a proper, more edible breakfast before I head home. Could I buy you breakfast as well, as a thank you for what you did?”

She looks at him dumbfoundedly. “Um, aren’t you going to ask my name first?”

He didn’t plan on it, no. You didn’t need to know a person's name in order to have breakfast with them. You didn’t even need it for small talk over said breakfast. He was just going to buy her breakfast and then let her go on with the rest of her life. But he could see that it wasn’t going to go the way he had planned on it going. “I guess I should ask your name considering you did have a help in saving my life.”

The woman looked like she wanted to hit him, and he wouldn’t admit it, but it amused him. “Lee Eunsook,” she tells him, shouts at him rather. “My name is Lee Eunsook.”

_ It’s definitely a fitting name _ , he thought. “My name is Zhang Yixing.”

She straightens herself and tilts her head to the side. “I thought you looked foreign.”

Yixing scoffed. “I’ve lived in this country ever since I was a kid…”

“And yet you haven’t perfected the language.”

Eunsook no longer amused him.

They didn’t talk very much after their breakfast arrived at their table. Yixing had only ordered orange juice being that he wasn’t exactly feeling well enough to eat as of yet, and Eunsook ordered a coffee and a muffin. Watching her eat it was something else. She asked for a fork and used it to dig chunks out of it with the fork. “Do you ever wonder what people think of you eating the way that you do?” he asked. He had his right arm folded under his left, and his left holding up his travel cup of orange juice.

Eunsook didn’t seem phased by the question. “Not really. My eating the way I do doesn’t affect their lives any, so why should I wonder about how people think of it?”

“Fair point,” he admits. 

“Do you care about what people think of the way you eat?”

“I don’t eat out much, so I don’t really need to.”

Eunsook looked up at him with a raised eyebrow. “Aren’t you a student?”

“No.”

“You don’t don’t go to any schools?”

“No.”

“Just how old are you then?”

“I’m twenty-seven,” he answered simply.

She looked a bit offended by his response. “How are you not in school? I’ve been at this for years, and I am twenty-nine.”

Yixing would be lying if he said that her age didn’t surprise him. He sipped at his drink casually and then sat it down. “So it wouldn’t be right for me to be addressing you as ‘older sister’?”

“No it wouldn’t be right,” she explodes in a fit of anger. “You don’t know me like that, you don’t know me at all.”

Yixing didn’t understand why she was getting angry. Then again, he also didn’t understand why he was still sitting there talking with her. “I haven’t had to speak with people that cared about honorifics too much, but you look like you would care.”

Eunsook relaxes in here seat and pushes away her muffin. “I do care, but you just met me. You can just call me Eunsook.”

“Okay, Eunsook.” He looks down at his cup, realizing that he was just sucking in air through his straw. “How much do I owe you for the mess I left in your vehicle?”

She blinked at him. “What mess?”

He couldn’t tell if she was naturally this dense, or if she was being so on purpose. “That I left in your car earlier this morning…?”

Her eyes widened slightly in realization, and she waved her hands out in front of her. “Oh, there wasn’t any mess. Don’t worry about it.”

Her body language said different. “How much did it cost to clean?”

“It really is okay.”

He was getting irritated with her, and it wasn’t good. He was prone to shifting in a weak state like this and anything could set it off. “I did not ask you if I could pay for it,” he reminded her. “I asked you how much it cost you to clean.” When she told him the amount she paid for her car to be cleaned, he wasn’t surprised. Not many people do those types of cleanings without being bribed into doing so. And if they did, you’d have to be one hell of a ballsy person to deal with them.

“Thanks,” said Eunsook warily. She places the small wad of money into her wallet- which in itself looked annoying- and placed it back into her bag. She asked a passing worker for a to go bag to place her muffin, and as she waited for it, she looked down at her watch. 

“Do you have somewhere to be?” inquired Yixing, half-heartedly curious.

“Class,” she answers simply. “I probably should have left for campus an hour ago.”

Yixing felt his heart sink a little. Did he know why? At the moment, it was most certainly not clear to him. Will he ever know why, at this very moment as he watched Eunsook become increasingly ansty, he felt as he did? It was plausible. “I didn’t force you to wait for me in the hospital, and I didn’t force you to come to breakfast with me.” He may have exaggerated his being defensive, but it certainly sounded like she was blaming him for her being late. “You came on your own accord.”

“Yeah, well maybe I should have left you in the library instead of involving myself in whatever the hell you have gotten yourself into.” She exhaled a gush of air, for what seemed to be held in for far too long. She thanked the worker that brought her a bag, and placed the rest of her muffin inside of it. “I’m sorry.”

Yixing couldn’t blame her for the outburst. He was wrong for getting her involved with him. He should have never went into that library, he knew better than to put humans at risk. But on the other hand, she could have very well left him at the hospital and never looked back. Yet, she stayed with him, all night. He could smell her all over the hospital room before he left. “The meal is paid for, and you were reimbursed for the damage I caused your car.” He pushed himself out from under the table and got up from the chair. He gave her a bow, thanking her for what she had done for him. “I’m also sorry for having troubled you, and for scaring you like I did. It won’t happen again.”

  
  
  
  
  
  
  


It was a long ride to class, or so it felt like. Eunsook felt wrong about what she had said to Yixing back at the coffee shop, but she couldn’t help but to feel right about it as well. He just dropped his injured ass into her life without so much as a warning. “He did apologize for it though,” she thought aloud as she walked through the college’s halls. It still didn’t excuse the fact that he forced her into a dangerous situation that she very well could have avoided had she not frozen at the sight of him bleeding all over the library’s floor. And he was also right about the fact that she could have just left him at the hospital instead of waiting for him to wake up. 

“Why in the hell did I do that?” she questioned herself. 

“Why did you do what?” asked her class mate, and also best friend, Lee Taemin. 

They’ve known each other since grade school, and Eunsook would go to the ends of the earth with him by her side. She wouldn’t know what she would do without him, and she was certain that the feeling was mutual. People were always concerned about how close they were, especially their parents. They would say things like  _ “the way you two act around each other is inappropriate for being just friends,”  _ or _ “both of you are making it hard for either one of you to find good relationships.” _

Sure, the way they did things was questionable to the public eye. Often times, when Eunsook was having a bad period week, Taemin would come over and cuddle with her until she falls asleep, and then he would step out. He was always a gentleman with her, the perfect gentleman. “It’s nothing,” she answers, wanting to push aside the pain that was this entire morning.

Taemin slides into the seat beside her, and gets out his books for class. “Why do people always say that something is  _ nothing  _ when it clearly  _ is  _ something?” 

Eunsook couldn’t stand how able Taemin was to read her. “Stop doing that. It makes me feel so exposed.”

“With the way you wear your emotions, you are practically exposed twenty-four hours a day.” Eunsook kicked him with her foot, and Taemin bit his bottom lip to keep from shouting in the middle of the lecture hall. “You can’t keep hitting me every time I say or do something that you don’t like.”

“Well, stop saying and doing things that you know I won’t like, and then maybe I won’t hit you.”

Taemin didn’t respond to her, even though she could clearly see the urge to in his face. In truth, Taemin was right. She can’t react in such ways every time he simply speaks the truth, even as much as she may hate it. “So what is it?” Taemin wasn’t going to let it go, he never learnt how to. Or rather, he didn’t care to. “Did someone take the last blueberry muffin? Did they add cream to your coffee after you told them for the third time, specifically not to?”

“Actually, I’ve had it pretty easy this week. I even managed to get two blueberry muffins this morning.”

“Okay, so then what happened this morning?”

Eunsook went on to explain to him everything that had happened up to the time that she had left the library the night prior. It wasn’t a surprise that Taemin would question her sanity at her story, it was actually predictable. Anyone would question her state of mind at what she was telling Taemin. “And he just...walked right into that shop as if he wasn’t bleeding in the back of my car!” Eunsook opened her notepad and wrote down the date on it in the corner of the paper. “I mean, he didn’t even look like he had lost all of that blood?”

“Why do you care so much about this guy, who may I remind you, you don’t even know?”

“What?”

Taemin placed his bag between his feet and sat up straight in his seat. “Sure you felt obligated to save the guy’s life, it’s human nature. It’s even more natural to stay to make sure he was okay. But why bother with how he looked, or how he should feel? You did your civic duty as a human being, and he repaid you for it. Just end it with that and move on.”

If she didn’t love Taemin to death, she would stop talking to him. He definitely wasn’t one to spare someone’s feelings, and he didn’t care if what he said hurt the person it was being said to or not. But she couldn’t go a day without talking to him. Like she said, she loved him too much.

  
  
  
  
  
  
  


Yixing had never felt more angry in his life at a mere human since his mother’s death, and boy did he let his neighbors know so when he got back to his apartment. He started off his wrath with a slam of his door and an angry toss of his keys into some random area of his living room that he will search like hell for later. His kitchen was the next to pay for things that wasn’t its fault. He grabbed a bottle of water from the fridge, and the leftover take out from the nearest chicken place. While the chicken warmed up in the microwave, Yixing chugged down the bottle of water as if he were hours without fluids. Why was he even warming up chicken? He wasn't even hungry. Maybe it was his emotion giving him the urge to eat. “Yeah, that’s it.” he thought out loud. It wasn’t true, and he knew that, but it was the only thing keeping him sane at the moment. He nearly jumped at the microwave when it went off. Had he actually had the intent to do anything to get that chicken, he might just have had destroyed it. 

As he ate his chicken without a proper plate, or without even sitting, he kept going over in his head of the mornings' events. He really didn’t ask for her to be in that library when she was, he wasn’t even aware of her until he stumbled upon her. His senses were a mess, and he was doing his damnedest to keep track of the hunters. Had he had known that she was there, he might have tried to handle things differently. But she  _ was _ there. Nothing can be done to fix it, and it was his fault that she was dragged into this mess. He will admit to at least that. Did she need to take him to the hospital, in her car no less? That is all on her. 

Rash, scared people call an ambulance and leave it at that. They might even follow along to make sure that they at least made it to the hospital. But Eunsook? Who in the hell personally takes someone that they don’t even know to the hospital? Especially in the state that he was in… “I wouldn’t even taken me to the hospital had I found myself in that state.”

He just couldn’t understand it, he couldn’t understand her. Why did she care enough to wait out the night for him? He was no one to her, a stranger who bled on the backseat of her car. “I’m sounding like a broken record inside my own head.” 

When he went to go for another piece of chicken, his phone went off. He placed the chicken box on the counter and grabbed for his phone. “Hello?”

“You have five second to explain to me why I have a representative from a city pack at my doorstep right now, telling me you fucked up.”

_ Jackson. _ Why didn’t he expect Jackson to get word of his actions here in the city? Jackson had ears and eyes everywhere. He liked to keep an eye on people. “It might be because I did fuck up,” he answers, sighing against the phone. “I think I really fucked up this time, Jackson.”

Jackson, too, sighed on the other end. “I’ve been informed, as I’ve told you. What have you done to take care of this?”

He hasn’t done anything to fix what he did, and he could tell by the tone of voice that Jackson already knew that. “I haven’t. I was too busy being treated for wolfsbane poisoning in the hospital. Suppose I have that  _ girl _ to thank for it.”

“Why did you let yourself be treated in a hospital, Zhang Yixing?” The question was rhetorical, and loud. Though the age difference was just two years, Yixing being older, Jackson certainly felt much greater so in this moment. “Do you not understand the shit you would have us all in had you been exposed?”

And that was just it; he wasn’t exposed. He didn’t know the guy that had helped him, and he was sure that he would never see him again to even get that chance, but he trusted that no one knew of him or what he is. “But I wasn’t, Jackson. As soon as I was able to leave the hospital safely, I left.”

“You left?” It wasn’t a question, rather a statement. “So you went home and didn’t go anywhere before that?”

“Why are you treating me like a child right now, Jackson? I am able to do what I want, eat breakfast with whom I want.”

“I know you are, Yixing, and I apologise for coming off as a parent toward you. I worry about you, these kids you have me taking care of ask about you all of the time. What do I tell them if their pack leader, their alpha, suddenly wasn’t there for them to hear about?”

He honestly hadn’t considered those kids in a long time. Part of him, regretfully, wanted to forget about them; more so what brought them to be orphans. Jackson, even though it wasn’t directly said, was right. He had to stop acting rash when it came to his life. He  _ is _ the alpha of his barely function pack now. He can’t just jump at the first hunter to be hunting after him or other wolves. It will inevitably get him killed at some point, and then what?

And it really wasn’t even putting himself into dangerous situations that he needed to consider. Those pups are nowhere near old enough to learn to fight, much less how to defend themselves. Though, considering who Jackson is, it would be no surprise that he is training them lightly. They are at the age that leaves them with limited protection, and Jackson is one man. He has duties to his own pack as well, he can’t abandon them for those pups.

"Look Jackson, I am sorry about my behavior recently, truly, but I can't just stop involving myself in other people's lives- our people. Especially when there are families out there without proper protectors."

"It isn't your job to protect them, Yixing. They have a pack of their own to protect them."

Yixing slams his hand against the counter, causing the sound of it to echo. "But it's my fault that they need protecting to begin with. Ever since-"

Jackson's voice came in calm, sympathetic, and understanding. "It's just a horrible coincidence that the number of active hunters have increased since you moved there. It is less than likely that it's because of you, and you should stop making yourself feel obligated to do something about it."

"How do you expect me to sit back and just do nothing?"

"I don't," he answers honestly. "That is why I sent someone up to you to make sure that you do. In fact, he should just be arriving."

Yixing felt the hair on his next stand up, and the wolf inside him immediately felt threatened. "Jackson, you didn't…"

Jackson hums in response, a laugh pushing through his words. "I take it that your senses are aware of who it is. Do yourself a favor, Yixing, and don't give him any reason to hang you up on a wall."

With that, Yixing watched his phone go black as Jackson ended the call. He could honestly scream due to how angry because was. He couldn't understand why Jackson would go out of his way to send  _ him  _ of all people. Huffing, he heads for the door that began to be abused by the knuckles of the unwelcome surprise waiting for him at his door. He didn't want to open it, he  _ really _ didn't want to open his door.

"I know you are home, Yixing," came the voice from the other side of the door. "I can smell the sour air from out here."

Yixng felt the wolf inside him itching, clawing to come out. Although he recovered, he was finding it incredibly difficult not to shift. He held his breath and opened the door, immediately finding himself losing the ability to keep himself together. Unbeknownst to him, his visitor was well prepared for this, and was quick to act. The last thing he sees as his body drops to the floor, is Jackson's idea of supervision, Lu Han.


End file.
